Reality TV star Kim Kardashian has claimed valuables were stolen from her luggage during a British Airways flight from Heathrow.

The American socialite flew home to Los Angeles after spending time in the capital promoting her latest fragrance and slimming products and visiting her boyfriend Kanye West.

She also attended the Cannes film festival in the south of France before flying to Los Angeles from Nice via Heathrow Terminal 5.

The 31-year-old star took to Twitter to accuse the airline of rifling through her possessions.

She tweeted to her 15 million followers: "Very disappointed in British Airways for opening my luggage & taking some special items of mine! Some things are sentimental & not replaceable."

She added: "What happened to the days when you could lock your bags! We need to get back to that. There's no sense of security & no trust!"

Among the items she claims were taken were a pair of sunglasses given to her by her father Robert just before he died, TMZ reported.

A spokeswoman for British Airways said: "We are continuing to investigate this matter. Our customer travelled from Nice to Heathrow Terminal 5 to Los Angeles.

"Terminal 5 has some of the most sophisticated automated baggage systems in the world, which are able to monitor bags every minute of their time in the terminal. At this stage, we have discovered no evidence to suggest that the bag in question was interfered with at Heathrow."

A spokeswoman for Heathrow owner BAA said: "There are high levels of security at Heathrow. Passenger bags are electronically tracked and recorded throughout the system."